The Amber Road

In the Bronze Age the Balts used amber as the main object to barter for copper alloys. Its considerable quantities are located in the zones of copper mines in Middle and Southeastern Europe. An important raw material, amber was transported from the North Sea and Baltic Sea coasts overland by way of the Vistula and Dnieper rivers to Italy, Greece, the Black Sea, and Egypt thousands of years ago, and long after.

In Roman times, a main route ran south from the Baltic coast in through the land of the Boii (modern Czech Republic and Slovakia) to the head of the Adriatic Sea (modern Gulf of Venice). The Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun had Baltic amber among his burial goods, and amber was sent from the North Sea to the temple of Apollo at Delphi as an offering. From the Black Sea, trade could continue to Asia along the Silk Road, another ancient trade route.

To emphasize the importance of amber trade, the researchers of prehistory coined a special term – “Amber route”, a hypothetical ancient trade route for the transfer of amber from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean Sea and Caucasus.

The Old Prussian towns of Kaup and Truso on the Baltic were the starting points of the route to the south. Sometimes the Kaliningrad Oblast is called the Янтарный край, which means “the amber area”. In Scandinavia the amber road probably gave rise to the thriving Nordic Bronze Age culture, bringing influences from the Mediterranean Sea to the northernmost countries of Europe.

The Bronze Age saw a number of its ramifications. The principal amber route began from the Baltic coast and led to the lower Vistula. Using the Warta and the upper Oder or their coastlines the amber route crossed Bohemia, Moravia and reached the Danube. From there the route forked: one branch went to Greece, Peloponnesus and Crete (amber beads excavated in the burial grounds of the Mycenae culture are dated to the period between 1600 and 1500 B. C.).

Through the passes of the Alps, the second branch went down to northern Italy. Another amber route from the Baltic shores travelled overland up to the Dnieper, then up its mouth to the Caucasus, the eastern regions of the Black Sea and the southwestern areas of the Caspian Sea. Amber objects are found in Ossetia, Middle Caucasus.

The Koban culture (ca. 1100 to 400 BC) is a regional variant of the earlier Bronze Age ‘North Caucasian’ culture group, located in the Kuban Valley of southwestern Russia dated to the mid-2nd millennium BC. It was also the name of an industrial complex of the late Bronze Age to early Iron Age, dated to the early 1st millennium BC in the same area.

The Koban culture was distinguished by rich Kurgan graves, use of the battle-ax, and a range of metal objects including the ‘Pontiac’ hammerheaded pin. The heavy concentration of Caucasian bronzes in the amber source zone of east Prussia indicates an extensive amber trade.

The Koban culture is preceded by the Colchian culture of the western Caucasus and the Kharachoi culture further east. It is named after the village of Koban, Northern Ossetia, where in 1869 battle-axes, daggers, decorative items and other objects were discovered in a kurgan. Later, further sites were uncovered in the central Caucasus. Many, such as Amjad Jaimoukha, believe the Koban culture was primarily Nakh.

Interregional amber traffic also reached Asia Minor. In the burial grounds of Sernai (near Klaipeda, Lithuania) was discovered a bronze statuette (dated to 1500-1000 B. C.) resembling a Canaanite god from Syria – Palestine.

The old traditions of amber trade are described by classical Greek authors and researchers. Amber is mentioned in Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey”, Herodotus’ (490-480-425 B. C.) works. Amber was also honoured an exhaustive account after the journey of Pytheas of Massalia to the shores of the Baltic Sea and the North Sea in around 325 BC.